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Building a Haswell i7 System

Well, it's that time. My Core 2 Duo E6600 (code name Conroe), while perfectly adequate for web browsing and business tasks, is inadequate for some of what I want to do. The processor is from 2007 (no, really), the motherboard is from 2010, and the video card (a nVidia 460) is also from 2010. Considering that I want to play with the newer games as well as dabble in virtualization, it's time for a replacement.

And, yes, Haswell has me drooling. I think USB 3.0 implementation is now mature. I can't wait for the Z87 motherboard reviews. This ought to be fun.

I found a site called PC Part Picker which is a price tracking site for PC Parts (thanks LifeHacker)) and threw what I liked in my system. The answer was essentially "start saving". :rolling: Well, it's nice to have an idea, plus I can skimp on some stuff now and upgrade future. (I can get by with 8 GB of RAM instead of 32GB, my existing 460 video card and SSD drive work work great).

Actually that comparison is pretty handy. (Awkward to use, but still handy.)

Just start removing motherboards that don't have the things you need and you might have a managable list fairly quickly. For instance I want display port, that zapped 1/2 the motherboards in an instant. Then some tweaking and I'll be down to a nice system to drool over and not be able to afford for a year anyway...